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CERN LHC Lawsuit to be Dismissed?

June 27th, 2008
By JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor

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BlackHole.jpgAccording to this report from the New York Times, the Federal Government is moving to dismiss the lawsuit attempting to stop the activation of the CERN Large Haldron Collider in France. A large portion of the motion to dismiss seems to be coming from legal maneuvering as opposed to an argument on the merits of the case.

Calling its claims “overly speculative and not credible,” and saying that it is too late anyway, lawyers for the federal government argued this week that a so-called “doomsday suit” intended to prevent the startup of a the world’s most powerful particle accelerator should be thrown out of court.

In a barrage of some 40 documents filed the this week, government lawyers argued that the case should be dismissed and that they were entitled to a summary judgement in their favor because the lawsuit is subject to a six-year statute of limitations. The clock started ticking in this regard in 1998 or 1999 when the National Science Foundation and the Department of Energy began spending money on the collider, the government lawyers say.

The government is basing their decision to seek dismissal on a number of fronts. First, they still claim that the CERN safety study sufficiently answered the safety questions raised, and that similar concerns were raised in a previous suit brought against the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) built at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, which was also dismissed. Second, they state that the suit would have no effect even if it were successful. The funding provided by the United States has already been spent, and if U.S. participation were ended today, the project would still go forward. A court in Hawaii has no authority to stop the work conducted in France by the European Center for Nuclear Research. Further, they claim that Fermilab (also named in the suit) can not actually be sued because it is not a legal entity, only a collection of buildings and test sites.

Will this end Dr. Wagner’s efforts to stop the project from going forward? Not likely. He addressed most of the issues raised by the government during our interview with him this week. (You can listen to the full replay at the link.) He questioned the findings of the safety study, calling several of their theories purely speculative. How his team plans to address the legal issues raised, I’m not sure.

Dr. Wagner also pointed out to us that it’s theoretically possible that none of this will matter in any event. There was a potential (lower than at the LHC) that the RHIC could have already spawned the microscopic black holes (MBHs) or strangelets which concern him. So, in theory, there could already be an MBH orbiting inside the Earth, or even the Sun. Dr. Wagner predicts that the LHC will go on line some time by the end of this year, with a similar danger extant.

Let’s move to the bonus round for all of you hard core armageddon enthusiasts out there. Wagner speculates that, at the low end of the theoretical range, a MBH generated by RHIC last year could collapse the Earth in roughly five years. The five year clock would put us at roughly December of 2012. Does that date ring a bell with anyone? (Insert evil grin here.)

See our previous coverage

e-mail the author: jazzshaw@gmail.com



This entry was posted on Friday, June 27th, 2008 at 5:05 am and is filed under Natural Disasters, Technology, Science, Math, Technology. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 6 Comments

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    Jazz, that is cosmically funny and (maybe?) a coincidence but that is an interesting notion that it would come up in 12/2012. There are so many different theories about that date. Perhaps they're all wrong and any MBHs are going to cause us to evolve into time-traveling superhumans. (And maybe politicians will all become honest, good people that actually and completely do the jobs they're elected for.)
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    Jazz, Why do you give this crank a voice. This Dr Wagner is obviously a loon. He has a history of crackpot discoveries. It's not even clear he's a doctor by his own admission,
    "Walter Wagner graduated UC Berkeley with a Minor in Physics, and a Major in Biology. Later, he discovered a novel particle in a balloon-borne cosmic ray detector, initially identified as a magnetic monopole. Though its identity remains uncertain, it is definitely not within the standard repertoire of known particles. After a three-year break from science to attend law school, Dr. Wagner resumed work in Physics and Biology at the US Veterans Administration Medical Center in San Francisco, working in Nuclear Medicine and Health Physics. He then embarked on teaching Science and Mathematics, from grade school to college. Dr. Wagner developed a botanical garden in Hawaii, and continues involvement with several professional associations, including Health Physics Society and Society of Nuclear Medicine."

    A minor in Physics???? anymore space for this guy is just demeaning to science.
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    Ryan, you can make whatever judgement of Dr. Wagner's bona fides that you like, but he's hardly alone. Follow the links at http://www.lhcfacts.org/ and check out some of the other names signed on to express concern over this. They include a numbe of noted nuclear physicists and astrophysicists from institutions including Cornell, Texas A&M, MIT and Yale. Nobody is saying this is definitely 'The End of the World OMG!!!!" but they are raising what seem to be valid safety questions not fully addressed by the CERN safety study, which in part relies on several theories which the scientific community has not reached any concensus on. (And whoever heard of asking CERN to do a safety study on CERN? Isn't that like asking the Justice Department to investigate the Justice Department?)
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    I guess with the comment that came right after mine it was probably assumed that I was attacking the story instead of genuinely being amused. I state a firm position of not taking a position on this but rather being interested to see what (if anything) happens. (Note to self: do not attempt to use humor on web postings--sense of humor almost never comes through properly and/or gets appreciated. I think that's probably why I never post.)
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    Jazz, I have taken the time to research the people behind the quotes Dr. Wagner has on that website you linked to. NOT ONE IS AN ACTUAL PHYSICIST. Dr Raj Baldev has a "Ph D." in Astrology... not astronomy. Dr. Tutt is a medical doctor. Dr. Paul Werbos holds an interdisciplinary Ph. D. economics and mathematics. Dr. Otto E. Rossler is also a medical doctor.

    This small black hole scenario relies on sooo many what ifs and maybes that it reaches past the possibility of being absurd. For a good run down read this post

    *Sigh* so many typos.

    Also Hawking radiation theory enjoy quite a bit of consensus, so that is not really a true statement. It has quite a bit of mathematical basis.
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    Actually you can research Dr. Rossler on wikipedia or scholarpedia: http://www.scholarpedia.org/article/User:Rossler.

    He is probably most famous for his contributions to Chaos theory including "Rossler Attractors". His contributions to science and physics include around 500 works according to scholarpedia.

    He is one of the worlds greatest geniuses in my humble opinion, I don't think characterizing Dr. Rossler as "a medical doctor" is an honest and unbiased characterization, he is a professor of theoretical sciences and a multi-award winning contributor to science. Currently he is trying to warn the worlds scientists to take a bit more time studying the safety issue, because he has and he sees a potential for trouble. So do I.

    Even CERN's SPC Committee who validated the 2008 LSAG Safety Report it included a disclaimer when discussing the primary emphical argument for the proof of safety from micro black holes:

    Quote "this argument relies on properties of cosmic rays and neutrinos that, while highly plausible, do require confirmation"

    It was worded very carefully, but the bottom line is, no proof of safety, arguments require confirmation. This approval report is available here: http://indico.cern.ch/getFile.py/access?contrib...

    Unfortunately there are no reasonably irrefutable arguments for the safety of creating micro black holes with velocities too slow to escape Earth.

    Three strongly disputed assumptions… Micro Black holes are created or not, decay or not, grow slowly or not.

    LHCFacts.org

    On the lighter side, have you seen the "Your Prefer Your Collider" music video? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1L2xODZSI4
 
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